Today’s Top Stories
1. According to Jordanian media reports picked up by the Times of Israel, Jordanian security forces thwarted a terror plot targeting “Israeli businessmen, the US embassy in Jordan and other Western and Jordanian targets in Amman.” In all, 17 individuals affiliated with Islamic State were arrested
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2. Israeli judoka Tohar Butbul won a bronze medal after a would-be Iranian opponent pulled out of the competition. The Jerusalem Post explains how Butbul was literally gifted the award Dusseldorf Grand Slam in Germany on Saturday.
Butbul, competing in the under-73 kilogram competition, received a bye into the second round where he was supposed to meet the winner of the bout between American Nick Delpopolo and Iran’s Mohammad Mahdi Brimanloo. However, after Delpopolo had to pull out injured, Brimanloo made sure to disqualify himself by being overweight in the weigh-in ahead of the start of the competition, sending Butbul into the last 16.
3. Israeli security forces foiled a Temple Mount terror attack, arresting three Israeli-Arab suspects from Umm el-Fahm. The three were said to be planning a an attack similar to last year’s murder of two Israeli police officers at the holy site. The Jerusalem Post reports the three were arrested in January and February before they could acquire weapons.
Following the July attack, Israel installed metal detectors, which were then removed in the face of widespread Palestinian demonstrations.
4. HonestReporting Prompts IBT to Correct Tel Aviv Error: Tel Aviv is certainly not Israel’s capital.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post picked up on a poll which found that Palestinians are becoming extreme in their positions. Support for “armed resistance” rose, support for both the two-state solution and peace talks in general dropped. Trust in both Fatah and Hamas has also declined.
• Haaretz: The IDF is blocking activists from Breaking the Silence from leading tours in Hebron.
• Is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre issue being used to clobber Israel?
• Gazans prepared for possible war with Israel with a surprise drill.
The information and instructions to the civilian population on how to locate the nearest safe space and how to evacuate children to shelters were appropriated from the IDF’s Home Front Command’s website and from messages it issues to the Israeli public.
• Palestinians clashing with Israeli soldiers accidentally burnt down a Nablus plastic factory. A burning tire rolled at soldiers veered off course, heading straight inside the building. Israeli firefighters helped Palestinian emergency crews battle the blaze, but couldn’t save the factory.
• Hezbollah will be able to get around US financial sanctions thanks to a new clause in Lebanon’s electoral laws.
Police Probe PM
(Disclosure: Harow briefly worked for HonestReporting more than a decade ago.)
• In first, prosecution explicitly points finger at Netanyahu in the Bezeq ‘bribes’ case:
In a first official on-record statement implicating him in the so-called Case 4000 corruption investigation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was named Tuesday as one of the people believed to have been involved in bribery as part of an illicit deal with the communications giant Bezeq.
• Israelis are in an uproar after texts showed that judge, attorney secretly coordinated in Case 4000.
– Jeff Barak: No politician is born to rule forever
– Moshe Arens: Give due process its due
– Moran Azulay: Political system entering a state of chaos
– Raoul Wootliff: A wayward judge may be the biggest blow to public trust in Netanyahu probe
– Nahum Barnea: Israel’s entire legal system has been polluted
Around the World
• Poland reportedly denied reports that it reportedly froze its controversial Holocaust law.
• Anti-Semitic images and cartoons are flooding the Polish press as the dispute over the Holocaust law drags on.
https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/968240531179556866
• Anti-Semitic incidents in 2017 more than double the US total from 2015, the Anti-Defamation League says.
The 2017 number includes more than 160 bomb threats sent to Jewish community centers and other institutions early that year. A Jewish teen from Israel has been arrested for making the vast majority of those threats, which were all not credible.
Discounting the JCC bomb threats, reported incidents still increased by 43 percent over 2016. Anti-Semitic incidents on schools and college campuses also doubled in 2017 for the second year in a row. Non-Jewish elementary and high schools experienced 457 anti-Semitic incidents, compared to 235 in 2016 and 114 in 2015.
• Jerusalem Post: Paypal closes second illegal French BDS account.
• Israel “Apartheid” Week is underway in London and Jewish students at one campus are taking action.
Students at King’s College London (KCL) are considering taking legal action after their elected representatives promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week” (IAW) events in a mass email to peers.
• If you’re going to use Israel to prove anything on either side of the US gun debate, please get your facts straight first: No, Israeli teachers don’t bring guns to school.
• According to Nigerian media reports, Israel is giving counter-terror training to Nigerian special forces who will be deployed against Boko Haram jihadis.
• Tunisian politics took a curious turn, with Israel and Jews at the center of the latest buzz:
Tunisia’s Islamist En Nahda Party is raising eyebrows by running a Jewish candidate in the upcoming municipal elections, in what it says is a sign of its openness.
But Simon Salameh’s nomination for the council in the Monastir district by the party within the governing coalition has come under criticism, referred to as a cold political ploy by the party and a sign of normalization with Israel.
Commentary
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Yonah Jeremy Bob: Should Israel risk sharing intel with Trump after Obama admin concerns?
– Amb. Danny Danon: The Palestinian leadership is the problem, not the solution
– Zalman Shoval: The Palestinians’ failed gamble
– Bassam Tawil: Palestinians: Israel is one big settlement
– Yoni Ben Menachem: Jibril Rajoub vs. Muhammad Dahlan to replace Mahmoud Abbas
– Mordechai Kedar: Hamas: Full steam to nowhere
– Howard Feldman: It’s not easy to be a South African Jew
– Eli Lake: Iran wants to join the world order it undermines
Featured image: CC BY hobvias sudoneighm; Butbul via YouTube; Church of the Holy Sepulchre CC BY-NC-ND Christopher Chan; gun CC BY-ND vuvanhahung;
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.
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